Weekly Reflection #10

I had heard about the "Pecha Kucha" style of presenting from one of the past leadership groups I was in at CCA, but I had never done one myself. It seemed more intimidating than any presentation I had done in the past since it seemed to be more restricting than helpful in any way.

There would have to be twenty slides, each twenty seconds long, whole presentation was to be six minutes and forty seconds long. The time limit would have been fine though it's very disorienting if your slide changes to the next one while still talking about the past one. There are also certain topics that deserve more attention than others.

It does not help that I have a huge fear of public speaking and the memory of a gold fish because of my anxiety, which this whole experience triggered my social anxiety disorder even more. I was in complete panic-mode the whole day and the weekend preparing for it.

I had tried my best to form a solid foundation for me to do a good job at my "Pecha Kucha." My topic was substancial and something I truly use in my every-day life, I had done some extra research to verify the information I was going to give out, I created a script that was divided up by slides and timed for twenty seconds, and finally, I created a presentation where images took over the space of text.

I think the last part was where I could have gone wrong. From what I had noticed from other students was that they had added some bullet points or text that would help them identify what part of the presentation they were on. With my memory, this would have been especially useful but I was following the rules too closely.

I had also noticed that some of the presenters before me had brought up some notes with them. That would also been very helpful for me but I had not thought of it before that, so during the intermission, I ran into the other room, tried creating a note sheet but I had run out of time. It was not helpful for me at that point since it was unfinished.

Some other tricks I noticed were people bringing their wrist watches up with them when presenting. Every so often, they would check their watch to pace themselves while delivering the presentation. This was very smart of them. Just these little tricks people used to assure them throughout the whole presentation would have been very useful for me but now I know if there ever comes a next time.

I think what I would borrow from this "Pecha Kucha" that I would implement into presentations and interviews is not trying to stay on script and go with the flow. I notice that in presentations like this and interviews, I try to say things like I prepared in my script—word-for-word—but I should allow myself to stray; especially if the conversation is going one directions and not how it was planned.